


Worth Every Pain

by aria_dc_al_fine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Attempted Rape, M/M, Omega Verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:38:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aria_dc_al_fine/pseuds/aria_dc_al_fine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft was aware that his life choices meant that he would age alone. But he didn’t mind. </p><p>A little loneliness was a small price to pay for freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I refuse to be defined by my gender.

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE Omega!Mycroft. Don't think I'll ever get enough of it! Few fics have covered Mycroft's struggles as an Omega, so I thought I'll give it a try.

The moment Mycroft experienced his first _heat_ , his world nearly crumbled.

He had been in university, then. A few years younger than his peers [1], resented for his genius and mocked for his weight, a pariah who often sat at the front row of his lectures by himself (not that he cared what they thought of him). The few days leading to the _incidence_ , Mycroft had noticed a few alphas looking at him with a weird expression on their faces, a strange mix of shock and wonder and more than once Mycroft had checked whether he had something on his face or not, before merely dismissing the observation to a corner of his brain in favour of concentrating on his multiple research papers; oh the price of accelerating his degree.

Now, he deeply regretted that oversight.

He had been sitting in his tutorial class, finishing an essay on politics in the Middle East while paying attention to the discussion with half an ear when all of a sudden, he was overcame with an _itch_. A burning sensation under his skin that left him feverish and unable to focus. And he’d become so sensitive, the feel of clothes against his skin maddeningly irritating, and the scent invading his nose, _oh, such a delicious masculine smell…_

“For goodness sake-!” The beta professor noticed what was wrong immediately (she could smell the pheromones her student was blasting in every direction, though it did not affect her as strongly) and pulled her brilliant student out of the tight-knit class before the two alphas in the room could jump him, handing Mycroft over to the motherly Omega doctor in the infirmary and his beta nurses as soon as she could. Mycroft had promptly been locked in one of the ‘emergency rooms’ with one of the beta nurses, who had kindly kept him hydrated as the hole between Mycroft’s arsecheeks gushed with slick, wetting the omega’s pale, chunky thighs repulsively. The nurse had even taught the awkward teenager how to operate the dildo so that the knot would inflate. After the debacle was over, Mycroft could never meet that nurse’s eyes; it was so mortifyingly embarrassing.

 And that was only the tip of the iceberg. The meeting between his parents – _God, they’d called Mummy to school_ – and the Dean of the university the next day had nearly made his heart stop, as well.

Mummy had enveloped him into her arms acceptingly, but Mycroft had sensed disappointment in his father’s eyes. Of course Siger Holmes would have wanted him to be an alpha. The Holmes line had always been strongly dominated by alphas, and quite of a few of Mycroft’s ancestors had wedded betas instead of omegas (Mummy was a beta), having an omega born into the family was quite unheard of [2].

“Thank you, Professor,” Mycroft heard his father’s voice from Mummy’s arms as he addressed the Dean. “We’ll take him home and continue his education ther-”

“No!” Mycroft reacted frantically before Siger could finish the sentence. Panic threatened to overwhelm him. He didn’t want to be kept indoors and married off to be a breeding machine with no rights of his own. He wanted to have his own life, pursue his own career; no, no NO!  

Siger raised a brow. It was rather uncharacteristic for Mycroft to interrupt him. “No?” he repeated, his pale eyes gleaming dangerously.

“I can manage this,” Mycroft set out to convince his parents with a confidence that he didn’t feel at all. “I was taken unaware this time because none of us had expected this. I don’t make the same mistake twice.”

The elder Holmes tilted his head and stared at his first son. They were so alike, from their appearance (beaky nose and brownish auburn hair) to their calm, cold façade. Violet was the more emotional one of the couple; the beautiful one too. God, Sherlock had inherited most of her bone structure and facial features. He’d better not be an omega too, Siger thought absently as he insinuated an argument with his son. “But you can’t fight biology, son. Your heat cycle,” his skin crawled when the words left his mouth, “may not be very regular, and I would rather not have you…accidentally impregnated.”

The steel in Mycroft’s grey-blue eyes merely looked stronger. “There are medications.”

“No,” Mummy reached out for Mycroft’s forearm. “Those birth-control pills are dangerous. The side-effects…”

“You know the probabilities are quite low, Mummy.” Mummy was, like the rest of the family, not dumb. She was brilliant in her own right, bright and intelligent not quite unlike Father’s quiet sharpness. Nevertheless, Mycroft turned to the tall, pretty woman and smiled at her reassuringly. He knew how to behave to let his parents concur with him. “It’ll be okay.”

“Even if, by any luck, you escape those side-effects,” Siger shook his head. “The society’s prejudiced. Everybody who meets you will tell you to go home and care for your children. They won’t give you a chance.”

“Then,” Mycroft turned his gaze to the Dean, his eyes almost menacing as his lips curled. He was winning this argument. He wasn’t going to be sent home. “We just can’t let anyone know, can we?”

\----------

Shutting up anyone who’d witnessed Mycroft’s awkward stumble to his first heat had been the easiest thing to accomplish since Mycroft’s life as an omega began.

Every day, Mycroft would dutifully consume his birth control pills (disguised as pills for some genetic disease he’d made a doctor produce a letter confirming the ‘diagnosis’), scrub himself with beta-scented soap, apply his beta-scented cologne and mentally keep track of how many days his next heat would be. He would give himself excuses to be away from college when his cyclical heat hit him (family matters of some sort, and Siger and Violet knew to provide others the same back story when inquired). And since Mycroft didn’t exactly have close friends – just acquaintances who would rarely spend more than half a day with Mycroft and would not question his disappearing to the loo every few hours – nobody except the Dean and the medics in the infirmary knew Mycroft’s secret.

The secret was a bit harder to guard once he’d graduated and started his job in the Government. His employer knew, of course – he knew he could hide nothing from the Service.

It had been a real struggle securing the employment. The Service welcome omegas into their folds; they had purposely sent omegas on missions before, to serve as distraction in retrieval of classified information, or to wrench truth out of the unwilling.

But they didn’t need Mycroft for _those_ kinds of missions. Mycroft hadn’t been able to completely avoid the unsavoury side effects of the birth control pills, after all. God, the weight gain. It didn’t help that Mycroft was already overweight when he started the pills. Some mornings, he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. There was no need to, not when he could see the flab that sagged to his crotch when he dressed himself. Thank goodness for the new pills [3].

_[The irony was, Mycroft could be ugly, but during heat, alphas would still flock to him, vying to stick their enormous dicks up his arse. He was just meat._

_How he had hated it.]_

No, the Service was skeptical of Mycroft’s capabilities as a politician. They mostly needed omegas to seduce, not to organise operatives and attend discussions and advice on policies; alphas made better (more aggressive) negotiators and betas were better administrators. Mycroft did not give up easily though, utilizing any opportunities he made sure to chance upon (family connection helped, a little), showcasing the strength of his mind, his observation skills. Before long, the Government caved.

Mycroft had explicitly requested that nobody but his handler and the top were to be privy to his secondary gender, and his wish had been granted. Still, with long, long meetings and frequent impromptu overseas ‘trips’ with environmental changes that confused his cycle sometimes, there were few near misses where Mycroft didn’t have the time to re-apply his arsenal of camouflaging scents, or his heat came two days early where he was still scheduled to be in a conference on the global oil supply. And with his ambition to be a ‘consulting diplomat’ [4] within the Government, it was of utmost importance that he met people, widened his network. He couldn’t keep to himself anymore, like when he was in university.

That was why, when the ‘suppressant’ was first released, in small quantities, into the market in 1997, despite its medical precautions so long they almost filled 12 pages, Mycroft was one of its earliest adopters [5]. Mummy had been very upset because one of the very possible side-effects was infertility, but Mycroft was _fed up_. With the careful planning it took to have three days off work every couple of months (it’d gotten easier after he’d gotten a PA, bless Anthea, but still, it was so tedious and had held him back from advancing in his career so many times), the seventy two hours of irrationality, his mind clouded by lust, the insatiable need to be fucked like a slut.

And the _fear_. The constant watching over his heats (damn fickle, fickle cycle, too sensitive to his food intake, the weather and his stress). The fear of being found out, of being dismissed as a coveted breeding machine by his colleagues and clients. The fear of his birth control pills screwing up from horrible sleeping habit (too many flights across too many countries in a week), of losing the _one thing_ he cared for (other than family, of course).

Mycroft was aware that his life choices meant that he would age alone. Nobody in their right mind wanted an ugly, barren partner; Mycroft had stripped his person off everything that made an omega attractive (other than the pheromones of course, which could be artificially produced anyway). But he didn’t mind.

A little loneliness was a small price to pay for freedom.

\-----------

_When Sherlock hit his puberty as an alpha, Mycroft almost cursed the unfairness of the world._

_But he was relieved, too, because without being an omega, dozens would willingly fuck Sherlock; that boy was too gorgeous, with his raven locks, large grey eyes and oh, those cheekbones, spotless creamy skin and lanky limbs. As an alpha, Sherlock would have a natural advantage. Sherlock would have freedom._

_No, Mycroft didn’t feel bitter towards Sherlock then; he felt bitter when Sherlock dropped off the face of the world and chose to shoot cocaine into his bloodstream.  When Sherlock chose to waste away._

_Sherlock had everything, absolutely everything Mycroft wanted but couldn’t have: ethereal beauty, dominant alpha genes, that diamond-edge brilliance that forced people to pay attention to him and never let go of their gaze. Mycroft had fought so hard to be where he was, at the heart of the British government. He’d sacrificed his body, his peace of mind, his dreams of love, and his beloved brother, who had it all, decided to throw everything away._

_Mycroft knew enough of himself to know that amidst his **panic frustration concern** for Sherlock there were envy and something that tasted a little like hatred._

_  
_TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Mycroft was 14 years old in the beginning of the story.
> 
> 2\. Omega verse tends to vary from one story to another…I’d read somewhere that only an AlphaxOmega pair can conceive alpha and omega children, but in other stories Lady Holmes or John’s parents are betas…I prefer to think of it in terms of genetics, with beta being the most dominant gene and omega being the most recessive (and alpha somewhere in the middle). Babies with alphaalpha and alphaomega genes mature as Alphas. Babies with betaalpha, betabeta and betaomega genes mature as Betas. And babies with omegaomega genes mature as Omegas. So in this world there should be around 33% alphas, 50% betas and 17% omegas. With the Holmes line dominated by alpha and beta genes, few babies had been born with omegaomega genes. Siger Holmes’ genes are alphaomega and Violet Holmes betaomega, though, so Mycroft is genetically ‘unlucky’.
> 
> 3\. Mark Gatiss was born in 1966, so I think of Mycroft as being born in 1966 as well. Why does this matter? Because birth control pills were only declared relatively ‘safe’ in 1988 (based on http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/health/a-brief-history-of-the-birth-control-pill/480/, dangerous side effects had included blood clots, heart attack, stroke, depression, weight gain and loss of libido). Mycroft couldn’t get the safer pills till he was 22 years old.
> 
> 4\. In some fics, it’s mentioned Mycroft is an ‘international relations specialist’, but according to ACD (and brother-mine’s LJ banner haha) "All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience."(The Bruce-Partington Plans). Since Sherlock is a consulting detective and Moriarty a consulting criminal, Mycroft can be a consulting something too. 
> 
> 5\. Why 1997? The safer birth control pill was only approved by FDA in 1997. I know this is an AU and I can very well set whatever events I want to, but as much as possible I want to stick to occurrences from our world.


	2. My life is still a circus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Happy New Year gift? With more dialogues!
> 
> Longer than two chapters now, definitely.

Sergeant Gregory Lestrade’s first thought upon meeting Mycroft Holmes was, ‘Is he really a beta?’

Greg’s family was a melting pot of secondary genders. His parents were an alpha-omega pair. He had three younger brothers, two betas and one omega. Greg himself was an alpha. His extended family consisted of more alpha aunts, beta cousins and omega nephews. He knew how people of different genders smell, how they behave.

Sherlock Holmes was a classical alpha, despite his lean beta build. The aggravating junkie Greg had stumbled upon a couple of weeks ago was aggressive, a whirlwind of sharp words and sheer brilliance that sought to override existing rules and conventions. Genius and dangerous, that’s who Sherlock was.

His unassuming elder brother, however, was an iron fist clad in a silk glove; subtle yet assertive.

 “You will find it beneficial for you to let him consult you,” the tall auburn-haired man spoke as he crossed his legs, the fabric of his pinstripe suit barely creasing as he adjusted the handle of his brolly against his arm. “Your superiors would agree.”

The way Mycroft carried himself suggested he was as alpha as his annoying sibling, yet he smelled unmistakably beta, with a whiff of…was that the scent of an omega? _Oh, Holmes, you think just because I’m an alpha, a bit of omega pheromones would make me cave?_

It was not in Greg’s nature to back down without a fight. “He has to be clean. My superiors would agree,” he retorted.

Mycroft’s thin lips widened. “Very well, I shall leave it to you to negotiate your terms of engagement with my brother.”

Greg blanched. “I’m not the one who needs this,” he squashed the urge to bare his teeth.

Mycroft didn’t react. He merely reached for his cup languidly (a tea party set up in the middle of an abandoned warehouse, what on earth?) and blew on his beverage. “There were two kids, weren’t there?” he eyed Greg’s fingers, which had been tapping nervously against his knees as seconds passed. “One pretty girl and a cute boy, no more,” his voice was quiet, dramatic. “Taken from a locked room. With bolted windows. And no signs of forced entry.”

Greg narrowed his eyes. He didn’t need to be reminded that a murderer his identity he had no clue of was still out there, possibly desecrating his third kid, while this dandy man in a suit held him up for a bloody tea party.

Mycroft shifted his gaze such that their eyes met, dark brown against grey blue.

“Why is my brother still behind bars, Detective Sergeant?” the elder Holmes asked, his words clipped and precise.

Greg cursed inwardly. “All right.”

And this was the first of Greg’s fatal mistakes.

\----------

_“Greg,” Julian’s face was haunted as he approached him, his petite body covered in long sleeves despite the heat of London summer.”Do you have some money to lend me?” His skin was almost white as a sheet._

_“Again?” Greg wanted to laugh it off, he really did. “What have you been spending them on? Not gambling, eh?”_

_His omega brother’s lips curled upwards. “You know I hate taking stupid risks, Greg.”_

_At least he could still smile, Greg thought. “Then what is your poison?” he was almost afraid to ask. “It’s not drugs, is it?” he joked._

_Julian twitched before he responded. “No, of course not.”_

_Greg took a sharp breath. “Julian.”_

_“It’s not illegal,” the omega’s voice grew more shrilled, “just, you know, suppressants are so expensive.”_

_Suddenly, Greg saw the way his long sleeves hung around his pale wrists in a different light. “Why would you need them?” Oh God, is that bastard of a husband of his abusing him?_

_Julian looked like he was going to flee. “Greg, I’m fine,” his eyes was pleading, and god, was Greg weak to that. “It’s just…I haven’t been feeling well, and heats can be very draining. Also, I…I don’t think I’m ready for a child yet,” he retreated slowly as he spoke._

_“Is that really all?” Greg grabbed his brother’s arm and Julian flinched, his dark eyes wide and terrified, like that of a cornered prey facing a monster. Greg recoiled inwardly, bile rising in his throat and let his brother go. “All right,” he passed him a wad of cash from his wallet, “I believe you.  Take care of yourself, ok?”_

_A couple of months later, Greg came home to find his mother in his living room with Laura._

_“Greg, Julian, he-”his mother sobbed. Greg barely took one glance at the frail elderly woman, her lined face wet with tears and contorted in anguish, and Greg knew. His heart sank._

_Julian was dead._

_(And it’s his fault, his fault.)_

\----------

Mycroft took one whiff of John Watson’s scent – 90% soap, 8% detergent, 1.5% sweat and a tiny trace of musk, a scent he was painfully familiar with – and he _knew_.

“You’re an unbonded omega,” he remarked as he released his hold on the shorter blonde’s hand.

The former military man’s dark eyes hardened. “And?” he responded challengingly, as though daring him, ‘ _What are you going to do with the knowledge?’_ Despite the panic he must have felt because nothing in John Watson’s records even mentioned a hint of this.

Mycroft would do well not to reveal that he’d made it out of his own observations, of his own intimate knowledge of the tricks of an omega in disguise, and not on some doctor’s testimonial he’d unearthed. “Sherlock is an alpha.”

John snorted. “And so were more than half the troops I had to share quarters with in Afghanistan.”

Mycroft snorted too, albeit inwardly. An unhealthy addiction with danger, indeed. “You are not haunted by the war, Dr Watson, you miss it,” he smiled and turned around, pleased.

If all was well, Sherlock would not only gain himself a flatmate by the end of it, but also a minder and, hopefully, a bondmate.

(Mycroft didn’t know why he was still wishing Sherlock well, really. He truly wanted to box Sherlock every time his insolent brother referred to his weight, he did, but at least the boy was healthy now, and making good use of his time. And that made Mycroft feel relieved. Enough to forgive him almost anything.)

\----------

“Mycroft!” Greg barged into the private room at Diogenes Club the yarder had already associated with belonging to the elder Holmes. “Your broth-”

Greg lost his trail of thoughts at the sight of the auburn-haired man with his jacket draped over the back of a chair and his sleeves rolled up his arm as he injected a clear golden liquid into his vein through a narrow syringe. Mycroft’s pale eyes strayed to the doorway the moment Greg forced his way in, but his hand continued handling the syringe unfalteringly.

 _It can’t be…_ Greg’d stilled as a statue in the middle of the room, his mind whirling a mile a minute. He thought of Sherlock. _Not drugs, surely!?_

“Detective inspector,” Mycroft disposed the syringe and addressed the yarder as he unrolled his sleeves. “It was insulin. I have Diabetes Type 1,” he answered the unvoiced question. [1]

“Oh,” unbeknownst to Greg, the colours that had left his face returned, “right,” the police officer nearly dropped to the nearest couch. He drank the tea the moment it was offered to him.

“So, detective inspector,” Greg could feel Mycroft’s unnerving gaze observing him as the government officer sat next to him, “how may I help you today?”

“Sherlock,” Greg sighed, “he’d played basketball with an American as his ball, dribbled him up and down the second storey of 221B and Mrs Hudson’s bins,” he described wryly.

“Ah,” Mycroft crossed his legs and reached for the blackberry in his pocket. “That matter. Thanks for letting me know, I’ll have the American out of your hair soon.” By the end of his sentence, his attention was already devoted to the device.

Greg looked down at his feet for a moment, wondering whether this would substitute his weekly ‘check-in’ with the elder Holmes or they would still meet for lunch tomorrow, before he noted a hint of weariness in Mycroft’s demeanor (God forbid it showed visibly, but Greg’s intuition was sharp and he had known this man for six years after all), and he decided to return to his office. If Mycroft needed anything from him, Greg would hear of it.

“Detective inspector,” the yarder heard as he rose to his feet and he turned to face the diplomat. Mycroft’s expression was surprisingly earnest, with no trace of pretension, “I’m sorry about what you are going through with your wife.”

Greg thought of Laura, his beta soon-to-be-former-wife, her anger at his devotion to his job (and not to the family), and her tears as she yelled, ‘ _I never felt like I’m yours, like you belonged to me_ ,’ and he shook his head. “It was not meant to be,” he simply said. His marriage was never like his mom’s and dad’s, where a look was enough to convey everything.

(He ignored the voices in his head that said, ‘It’s because they’re an alpha-omega pair.’)

“I’m sorry, nevertheless,” Mycroft replied softly, “Good day, detective inspector.”

Greg waved and left.

\----------

Mycroft encountered his first kidnapping when he was in his late twenties.

He was asleep one moment and the next time he opened his eyes he was already elsewhere, securely bound to a chair with three other men – masked, armed, burly men, one beta and two alphas – circling around him in a claustrophobic, nondescript room. He was wet and cold, the water they’d used to wake him soaking the fabric of his pajama. 

“Mycroft Holmes,” one of his captors sat in front of him. “Tell us who’s in charge of Hong Kong.” [2]

He’d spoken in a southern English accent with undertones that suggested a foreign upbringing. Cantonese, funnily. A Hong Kong based group who didn’t want the handover to fall through, then. He wore a black turtleneck and a jacket that looked like it came from M&S. There were smudges of lipstick on his neck and tobacco in his breath.

“The Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten?” Mycroft sounded confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand why am I-”

He was struck on the cheek, his lip tearing from the ring his captor wore.

The alpha interrogator pulled on Mycroft’s hair, gripped his chin and hissed to his face, “Tell us who the MI-6 responsible for Hong Kong is.”

Mycroft winced. “I’m afraid I’m just a minor civil servant-”

Another blow to the head. “Wrong again,” his captor barked.

Mycroft observed his surroundings and his captors as they painted his skin blue and black and cracked his bones. They were smart enough to not wear much indication to their identities. Mycroft was tucked in a place inside his head, his ‘mind palace’ as Sherlock would call it (he’d never known that it could be of use this way till now), assessing his data, when one of his kidnappers suddenly frowned. “…what’s the smell?”

Mycroft’s insides froze. Dear God, four hours must have passed since he last applied his beta perfume before he’d gone to bed.

It’d worn off.

“Isn’t it…” the ‘leader’ of the small gang remarked in disbelief. _No, no, heavens please no_ , Mycroft pleaded, but it was in vain. “…The scent of an omega?”

“Is it Shrimpie?” one of the masked men, the beta, quipped. “Wow, these scents travel far, eh? I never knew.” [3]

“No, you idiot!” the boss barked, “Shrimpie’s bonded. This is the scent of an unbonded ome-” as he spoke, he turned to his prisoner, and he looked like he’d pieced everything together. “Why, why, Mr Holmes,” his lips curled to a savage predatory grin, “you’ve managed to hide it from all of us for so long…but not much longer, eh?”

Mycroft glared at his captor as viciously as he could. “Don’t you _dare,”_ he gritted his teeth. MI-6’s average retrieval rate was three to five days. This was not looking good.

(Judging from the time lapse, at least they were still in England. Enough time hadn’t passed to pack Mycroft up a train or a plane and transport him across the borders.)

“Or what?” the boss smirked smugly before he barked an order to his sidekick, “Cheese, get the poppers. We’re going to have fun.”

Mycroft’s heart beat faster. They meant to _force_ him to go into heat. No time to lose then, “You’re going to listen to him, even after he’d slept with your girl?”

The beta kidnapper codenamed Cheese turned to him sharply. “What?”

“Talking about scents,” Mycroft continued as the boss glowered at him, “both of you share traces of the same feminine scents. They’ve been deeply ingrained to your scents, as though you both know this female intimately. Another interesting question is,” he spoke quickly before he could be stopped, “why the other alpha in the room didn’t say anything. He’s indebted to you perhaps?” he raised an eyebrow at the boss.

Cheese growled and lunged at his leader, grasping his collar in his gloved hands. “You-”

 “It’s not true!”

“If you know who I am, you know what my specialties are,” Mycroft fanned the fire. “Perhaps, Mr Crackers is also plotting to run away with your loot. He’d gotten into serious troubles with the loan sharks, after all.”

The boss fumed. “Jacob, you liar!” He punched the other guy before he could explain himself. The man fell on Mycroft, who took the opportunity to slip his hand, which he’d managed to wriggle out of the cuff, into the back pocket of his captor and stole his phone. He discreetly sent a message to his employer as the three men shouted at each other and had a brawl.

“Listen!” the boss eventually roared, “We’ve been had! Whatever we need to settle we settle later, ok? Cheese, get the damn poppers now!”

Mycroft only blinked innocently when the three glared at him before Cheese left, reluctantly.

“Jacobs, go get a gag. As long as he can talk, he’ll provoke us again.”

“Sir,” he followed the order.

The boss punched his gut the moment they were left alone. “You bastard!”

“What makes you think,” Mycroft wheezed, “that Hong Kong would be worse off under the Chinese regime? The Chinese still promises Hong Kong her freedom.”

“And they’re good at keeping promises, aren’t they?” his opponent sneered and backhanded him across his lips. “Just tell us the information we want, Holmes!”

Mycroft’s heart hammered against his ruptured ribcage when the two minions returned. “You are not a rapist, sir. If you go down this path, you’re just a petty criminal, not a fighter for your homeland,” he tried to reach out to the patriotism in his captor.

The man stilled for a while, but pushed the pill into his mouth regardless, as another man had his hands around Mycroft’s throat. “I’d like to think it a ‘perk of the job,’ Mr Holmes.” His grin was cruel.

Mycroft fought them by the skin of his teeth, scratching and clawing with his free hands, throwing his body (along with his freaking heavy chair) against his attacker and crushing him under the weight, and struggling so much he freed one leg through breaking the wood of the furniture. He’d never fought this hard his whole life.

They managed to get him to swallow the stimulant, still. The drug was so fast-acting before a minute Mycroft had felt warmth spreading under the skin of his chest and groin. He could feel the slick beginning to spill to his thighs and he heaved, “Don’t…”

“Don’t blame me, Mr Holmes,” one of them caressed his nipples through his pajamas and Mycroft couldn’t help but arch into the touch as the treacherous flesh hardened to nubs, even though he’d felt so nauseated, so disgusted, the urge to vomit so strong in his throat.

(It wouldn’t be the first time his biology had maddened him, his body at opposite ends with his mind.)

They re-positioned him against the husk of the chair. Cold air hit his bare behind as his pajama bottoms were pulled down to his thighs. Mycroft bit his lip to swallow the whimper that was on the verge of his mouth.

(They only wanted his hole exposed, not the rest of his body. He was just _meat_.)

“Are you going to tell us what we want?” his captor taunted as he touched Mycroft’s anus. The damn thing twitched before gushing with more liquid. _Traitors, all of them._

The sound of pants being unzipped never seemed so terrorizing, before.

Mycroft might be compromised, but he was not stupid. He knew they would still use him even if he told them.

“Never,” the word was still as hard to pull out of him as a tooth.

His kidnappers laughed derisively. One hand smacked his bum. “You just want this, don’t you? Slut.” Mycroft could feel the heat of a cock, pressed against his opening, and God, he _wanted it hated it needed it despised it_ -

The boss was shot before he could stick his filthy rod in, a rescue squad filling the room quickly. The kidnappers were apprehended before they could put up much fight.

“Mr Holmes,” the squad leader was an agent Mycroft knew, an agile man who was perfectly capable of putting an empathetic front, yet as he released Mycroft from his bindings and covered his indecency with a blanket, Mycroft didn’t show any weaknesses. He put on his best stiff upper lip and soldiered on. “Thank you,” his voice nearly quivered, but he didn’t allow it. “You’ll let me close the case, won’t you?”

The tall agent smiled, “Of course.”

(And Mycroft made sure that the three would _never_ be able to leak his secret.

He didn’t feel guilt. If they thought of him a ‘perk of the job’, he thought of them ‘collateral damage’. Something he was used to, of course.)

\----------

 “It was we, the people; not we, the alpha citizens; nor yet we, the beta citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to five the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people – omegas as well as betas and alphas,” Susan B Anthony [4], a noted omega’s rights activist, spoke and the crowd cheered, raw energy ascending close to furor.

 Behind the podium, Mycroft smiled to himself. Once Ms Anthony was elected as the first omega minister, the battle would have been half won.

There was nothing more to be done here, Mycroft thought. He was making his way out to the streets, to walk across the road to one of his offices when a familiar figure caught his attention.

“Detective inspector,” Mycroft eyed the dark-eyed man in surprise. The yarder was in slightly more casual clothes: polo and jeans instead of his usual shirt-and-trousers getup. It…suited him.

“Mycroft?” Lestrade looked as surprised as him. “What are you doing here?”

Mycroft cocked his head. “I suppose this won’t breach any security clearance…yes, Ms Anthony is my client,” he answered, “How about you, detective inspector?”

“I wish you’d call me Greg,” he smiled ruefully, “we’ve known each other for a while, you know. Anyways, I’m her supporter,” the DI showed Mycroft the pin he was wearing.

“My brother calls you Lestrade.” Familiarity might not be advisable for Mycroft. He was…fond of the yarder. The DI was the one person Mycroft could honestly label as a friend. He was handsome and had recently become single. Mycroft wouldn’t want to nurse false hopes. “Never pegged you as a supporter for omega’s rights.”

The DI’s expression turned dark for a moment. “My brother was an omega.”

 _Julian Lestrade._ Mycroft remembered reading about a younger omega brother who died from domestic abuse. From his alpha husband.

It was tragic, made even sadder by the fact that these instances were _common_.

Mycroft returned from his short trip to his bottomless memory storage to find Lestrade squinting at him. “You look pale,” he seemed concerned, “are you all right?”

Well, Mycroft hadn’t been. For the past few days he’d been feeling crabby, tired, and generally uncomfortable in his own skin, but he’d been cooped up in his office for four days, dealing with various emergencies and generally gearing Ms Anthony for her battles. The only person he’d met last week was Anthea. He’d slept for a total of less than eight hours. It’s logical that he was grumpy and fatigued (and he’d always been uncomfortable in his own skin anyways.)

“I may have neglected my-” as he talked, he was suddenly overcame by the sleigh of _senses_ that slammed into him: the bright colours of passerby’s clothes, noises of different types and pitches (man and women cheering, the flap of a herd of doves’ wings as they flew by, the honking of cars’ horns) and most notably, the scents – the stench of garbage, piling in bins at the alleyways behind buildings, the aroma of coffee and grilled salmon from a bistro nearby, and the smell of human sweat.

“Mycroft!” Lestrade caught him as his knees gave away. Mycroft inhaled a lungful of his scent as his face planted itself on the DI’s shirt – sun-dried Daz laundry detergent, Tesco’s home-brand deodorant, cheap cafeteria coffee and, beneath it all, desirable, masculine alpha pheromones.

The yarder placed Mycroft’s arm around his shoulder and secured his own across the taller man’s back. “Are you all right?” he asked as he started to lead his charge away from the crowd.

The continued proximity was wreaking havoc on Mycroft’s sanity. “I think so,” he gasped as he wiped the sweat on his brows.

They made it for three steps before Mycroft felt Lestrade stiffening at his side. “Good God, there’s a strong scent of an unbonded omega in heat nearby,” he started sniffing unconsciously, “and it comes from-”

Mycroft felt his heart dropping to his stomach when Lestrade ended up staring at him.

The yarder gaped. “You’re-”

Mycroft cursed under his breath. He’d had all of the symptoms of an oncoming heat. How could he have _missed_ it? True, he hadn’t had one in over ten years, but _still_. “I never miss my suppressants,” he babbled. “I don’t know-”

“My God,” Lestrade inhaled sharply and looked like he’d regretted his action straight away, his pupils dilating and his pheromones intensifying. He shook his head and started to move away from him, “It’s not a good idea to be close to me now-”

“Please,” Mycroft held on to him. “My car isn’t nearby and my assistant is on leave. I…”

‘Hey, is this the scent of an omega in heat!?’ they heard someone close to them mention. Lestrade gave voice to the curses in Mycroft’s head before his expression turned resolute. “All right.”

The DI immediately dragged Mycroft to the road and stretched out his hand to hail for a cab. “Do you have a safe house for situations like these?” he murmured against Mycroft’s skin, the inspector trying very hard to breathe from his mouth. Mycroft nodded.

A cabbie stopped by them. Lestrade opened the door, and swore when he smelled alpha pheromones from the driver’s seat. “We’re not taking your cab, sorry.”

“I won’t take you either, mate,” the elderly (but still virile) cabbie glanced at Mycroft. “Best of luck.”

The wait for the next cab was almost unbearable. Mycroft found himself losing more and more of his senses to his biology’s demands, his mind overcame with the itch to be filled. He could feel his slick soaking his boxers and soon his trousers.

He was taking big gulps of air when two people suddenly approached them.

“You’re so irresistible,” one of them said, while the other looked at Lestrade. “You’re not his bonded. He’s still fair game,” he pointed at the auburn-haired omega with his chin, his fingers twitching from the effort of holding back.

Mycroft felt sick.

The growl that escaped Lestrade’s throat was unexpected. Before he knew it, Mycroft had found himself enveloped in the older man’s more muscular arm as he tucked Mycroft away from the younger alphas’ sight. “Back off!” The DI turned his head and ordered aggressively, his voice savage yet his hold protective, as though Mycroft was a treasure to be taken care of, instead of an object to be fought over. “I won’t let you!”

The two alphas looked murderous. Luckily, before anything went pear-shaped, the cab that stopped by them this time had a beta driver.

Lestrade shoved Mycroft into car before quickly getting in himself and closing the door. “Hampstead Garden Suburb,” Mycroft told the cabbie, and then they were out of the pan as the car sped away.

But into the fire, it seemed. Lestrade scooted as far as humanly possible while still remaining in the same cab. Mycroft was shaking as he strained to stop his body from blasting pheromones every other direction by keeping his mind lucid. A losing battle.

“Your phone,” the DI grounded, his knuckles white as he held on to his jeans. “Call your PA.”

Mycroft reached for his blackberry, but his hand was trembling too badly to jab the right buttons. He made a noise in annoyance.

“Let me,” Lestrade plucked the phone out of Mycroft’s fingers. “What name is she recorded under?”

“Speed dial,” Mycroft thought it unfair that the yarder was still coherent, “One.”

Lestrade pressed the buttons. The car suddenly lurched as they stopped for a red light and the alpha skidded to Mycroft’s lap. The first crack on his demeanor appeared when the salt-and-pepper haired man looked up. His dark brown irises were but thin rings, and God, his cock looked like it was pressing tightly against his clothes, hard and thick and bulging out of his groin.

Mycroft couldn’t wrench his eyes away.

The moment stretched as the dial tone entered the car in regular, mechanical bursts. It shattered the moment the call was answered. “Mr Holmes?” Mycroft could hear Anthea’s voice from the phone speaker.

Lestrade released a tiny whimper before he scrunched his face and extricated himself. He was composed again when he spoke to the phone. “DI Lestrade here. Your boss goes into heat. We’re going to Hampstead Garden Suburb.”

Anthea didn’t let out any signs of shock. “We’ll make our way there ASAP,” she replied, and the call was finished.

The rest of the car ride continued to cut into Mycroft’s self-control. With Lestrade's desirable scent at bay, Mycroft felt rather like the strings of a violin bow, pulled taut and snapping, one fine piece by one fine piece, till the whole thing break.

Mycroft was one inch away from begging the alpha to bend him over and fuck him (poor cabbie. The air in the car was so thick) when they finally, finally arrived. Lestrade let Mycroft pull out more than enough money from his wallet (the cabbie had to air the car after they exited, after all) and handed the wad of cash over before whisking the both of them into the brick-red suburban house.

“Lestrade,” Mycroft breathed wetly against the darker skin of the yarder’s neck as he wrestled against the highly modern, complicated locking mechanism of Mycroft’s home. The delicious man was unbonded, a pleasant alpha specimen both to the eyes and in personality. To the omega in Mycroft, he’d be a fool to let Lestrade out of his grasp this time. “Please,” he swiped his tongue against the other man’s skin.

The front door finally opened. The DI shoved Mycroft into the nearest available room (the study), and locked the door from the outside.

Mycroft slumped against the door. “Please!” he groaned, his hands pounding against the door, “please...”

“No, Mycroft,” Lestrade’s voice sounded muffled. “You’ll regret it.”

Perhaps, Mycroft thought, but for now, the only thing he could feel was a deep hollowness within him, anguished at being denied what it needed.

One hour gone, seventy-one to go.

They had a long, long wait ahead of them.

TBC

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Yep, that is the fictional genetic disease mentioned in the previous chapter.  
> 2\. Head canon that Mycroft spent some years in MI-6. Britain handed Hong Kong over in 1997.  
> 3\. Betas’ sense of smell isn’t as strong as alphas’ and omegas’.  
> 4\. Susan B Anthony was a women’s rights activist whose speech was listed in ’10 most inspirational speeches’ here: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1841228_1841749_1841738,00.html


End file.
